Let me in
by peaceinapod
Summary: Christian and Ana have broken up. Both Christian and Ana are miserable, but Ana is determined not to succumb to her feelings because of what led to their split. If you want to know why they broke up, read the story ;).
1. Chapter 1

**Ana**

Ana curled her comforter around her tighter. She knew that Kate was waiting for her to come out for dinner, but she couldn't convince herself to leave the comforting warmth of her bedding.

Ever since she had walked out of Christian's apartment two days ago she had felt a heavy numbness, like she was fighting her way through a pool of maple syrup with every movement. She hadn't even cried as she mechanically rode the bus home from his pent house. She had refused to drive the car Christian had given her home. She didn't want to look at the reminder of him. Every time she thought of Christian she felt like her heart was trying to thump its way out of her chest. It hurt. Like someone was hitting her chest with a giant hammer.

When she had gotten home, Elliot and Kate had been mid-make out. They had looked up with guilty smiles like kids caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Kate called for her to come finish watching their movie with them, but she shook her head, afraid that if she spoke her voice would tremble. Kate and Elliot were the picture of a couple in love. Everything she had wanted, everything she thought she would have was right there on the couch with Kate and Elliot, and it made her sick to look at.

Instead she had gone straight to her room, locked the door and bathed in her self-pity. But today was Sunday which meant work was tomorrow. Kate knocked on the door and she snapped out of her reverie.

"Ana, are you coming out?," Kate called from outside the door.

Ana closed her eyes and willed herself to move. Slowly she rolled back the covers and climbed out of bed. She knew her friend was worried about her. The least she could do was eat the dinner that Kate had spent all day making.

 **Christian**

Christian watched the clock on the microwave tick away the minutes. He sipped slowly on his wine, not really tasting it as much as acting out of habit. His dinner lay in front of him, untouched. This had been his life before Ana. He had eaten dinner at 7 PM every night like clockwork. He had spent years eating by himself, and he had never minded – until now.

He wondered what Ana was doing. Was she eating enough? Was she happy?

It had been two days since he had seen her. Two days that seemed to go on forever. He hated not being able to talk to her, he hated not waking up next to her and he hated the empty sound of his apartment without her. At first he had tried to stay busy. He wrote several contracts and replied to all of his emails, and when he could think of nothing else to do had resorted to driving around the city trying to pretend he wasn't visiting all the places he had been with Ana.

But nothing made the ache in his chest go away.

When Ana had walked out of his apartment, she had asked him to not to try to contact her, and he understood why, but right now he wanted nothing more than to see that cheeky smile and to hug her so close that she could never leave him again.

Instead he finished his wine and trudged to bed. He wasn't sure what he was going to do tomorrow, but he wasn't sure he cared either.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey all,**

 **The coming chapters will be longer, I promise! I just don't believe in wasting time with the stage setting in short stories. Save that for the novels :)**

 **-F**

 **Ana**

Ana started the engine of her new car with a soft hum. She and Kate had gone to the car dealership yesterday and picked up a silver Honda. It was the first new car she had owned in her life but Christian had given her a check for way more than what her beat up old VW Bug was worth. She had to admit that it was nice not to have to crank the steering wheel 8 times just to turn left.

Her apartment was only a two minute drive from her work. She would have walked but it was raining that day. Not that it wasn't usually raining in Seattle – the soggy capital of the world.

She pulled up in front of her work and forced her legs to walk inside. Haley, the secretary at Little Hippo Children's Publishing House waved at her with her signature unfailing peppiness. She could already feel that this was gonna be a long day.

 **Christian**

"Can I get you anything?," the newest intern Claire asked from his doorway.

"No thank you," Christian replied from his perch in a large black office chair turned to face the floor-to-ceiling wall of windows.

He heard the door shut with a soft thud behind him. He felt like his life was crumbling around him. Even his work wasn't the safe haven it had been anymore. He had finished all of the work he had to do today an hour ago and he didn't have any meetings for three hours. Normally he would have found emails to write and finished contracts that weren't due for weeks, but today he couldn't find anything that seemed to matter.

His heart was ten blocks away at Little Hippo's.

All of the sudden he couldn't take it any longer. She had asked him not to contact her, but that didn't mean that he couldn't just get a little glimpse of her face, right? He wouldn't let her see him. The windows to his car were heavily tinted, from his safe perch inside the car he could satiate his craving and not violate her wishes. So it was a loophole, he didn't care. He was a desperate man.

She took her lunch every day from twelve to twelve thirty. If he hurried he could catch the last twenty minutes of her lunch.

"Taylor," he called out the door, "bring the car around."


	3. Chapter 3

**Ana**

Ana plopped her keys into the little dish by her door with a little clink. Today had been horrible. First she had barely kept herself from emailing Christian, then she had made a typo in an email to her boss, and then to top it all off she hallucinated Christian standing across the street when she had her lunch.

He doesn't want to see you, she reminded herself. The look on his face when she had walked out of his apartment had nearly broken her resolve. But there was no way it could work. Ever since Jack had kidnapped her, she hadn't felt safe in his house. She was constantly looking over her shoulder and double checking shadows. Every time her phone rang, she jumped. When she briefly hallucinated the sound of Jack's voice when she had been having sex with Christian she knew that she needed to get out.

She had seen the pity in his eyes. She knew that he had tried to accommodate her new PTSD, but deep down she knew he deserved better. He was trying his best, but he was suffering the after effects of the traumatic event as well. His men followed her everywhere she went and though their presence calmed her as well, she felt like she couldn't just break down and cry like she wanted to because there was always someone watching her.

She hated to admit it, but she had been becoming dependent on Christian's loyal guards. Sometimes in the middle of the night, she would take the long route to the bathroom just so that she knew that she was never more than twenty feet from Taylor's bedroom. The moment that Dr. Flynn told her that she may feel the effects of this forever, she knew she had to let him go. It wasn't good for either of them to be there. Without Ana to worry him, Christian could get back to the work he had been neglecting and she could focus on herself for a while.

No matter how sad he had looked, it was the best thing for him. She knew that he would get over her quickly and find a great girl who could be happy and not hold him back.

"Hey girl!" said Kate as she rounded the corner.

She had that worried look on her face, the one that meant that she was worried that Ana was going to fall apart at any second.

Ana smiled half-heartedly at her. "Sorry I'm late. The traffic was crazy."

Kate studied her for a minute then seemed to snap out of it and resume her usually cheery self. "Hey, no worries. I'm just worried about you that's all. I've just never seen you this hurt over a guy, that's all."

Kate grabbed her hand and pulled her into their little kitchen. The table was set with a table cloth and two places were set with the nice plates they usually only pulled out at Christmas.

"I thought we could have a girls night," Kate said with a hopeful smile.

Ana smiled her first real smile in three days. Girl's night was a tradition they had started part way through their freshman year in college. When Ana had walked in on her first boyfriend kissing another girl behind the science building she had cried all the way back to their dorm room. Kate took one look at her and said "Looks like it's time for a girl's night." Since then, every time one of them had had a hard day at work or broke up with a boyfriend, they would spend a whole night watching cheesy rom-coms and giggling about all the stupid stuff that they had done together.

"Sounds amazing," Ana said, "What's for dinner?"

Kate smiled a shit eating grin. "PB and Js. What else?"

"Throwback to the broke college student days?" giggled Ana.

Kate brought over the sandwiches while Ana sat down. She still felt that hopeless feeling in the top of her stomach, but as she watched Kate puttering around in the kitchen, it didn't feel so overpowering. You will never have Christian back, she reminded herself, might as well get used to it now.

Kate finally sat down in her seat across from Ana. She studied Ana for a minute. "Wanna to talk about it?" she inquired.

Ana choked on her bite of sandwich. She had almost forgotten about Christian, but now it came rushing back. She felt nauseous again. "No, not tonight," she mumbled and prayed to god that Kate wouldn't push her.

Kate frowned. Ana knew she was worried about her. She knew that she should give her some explanation, but the words stayed stuck in her throat. The familiar tightness of a panic attack squeezed her chest, but after a minute Kate resumed a cheerful facial expression and changed the topic to her day at work. Ana breathed a sigh of relief.


End file.
